Speedway Gp In Tatters !

[stratton]

I certainly agree that this places Olsen - well imho... - as the top Danish rider of all time. Before Ole, Denmark had no pedigree in producing great Speedway riders... He was the trailblazer. sidney likes using tennis allusions and there's a suitably Scandinavian one with Bjorn Borg...

 

The same reasoning behind rating Olsen so highly (certainly in my all-time top six - don't know why we've settled on six! - riders of all time...) would see me place the great Mirac above his two esteemed fellow World Champ Kiwis... Yes, the great Ronnie Moore of whom none other than Mr. Mauger has written, "Without Ronnie, there would have been no Briggo and no Ivan Mauger; whenever he came home to NZ it was like the arrival of Elvis. He was our Pele if you like."

 

As for the deviation of this thread... Come on, it's the winter (and doesn't it seem so tonight..?!) - we're surely allowed on the BSF to meander around a bit and let's face it, there's been plenty of lively debate!!

I certainly agree that this places Olsen - well imho... - as the top Danish rider of all time. Before Ole, Denmark had no pedigree in producing great Speedway riders... He was the trailblazer. sidney likes using tennis allusions and there's a suitably Scandinavian one with Bjorn Borg...

 

The same reasoning behind rating Olsen so highly (certainly in my all-time top six - don't know why we've settled on six! - riders of all time...) would see me place the great Mirac above his two esteemed fellow World Champ Kiwis... Yes, the great Ronnie Moore of whom none other than Mr. Mauger has written, "Without Ronnie, there would have been no Briggo and no Ivan Mauger; whenever he came home to NZ it was like the arrival of Elvis. He was our Pele if you like."

 

As for the deviation of this thread... Come on, it's the winter (and doesn't it seem so tonight..?!) - we're surely allowed on the BSF to meander around a bit and let's face it, there's been plenty of lively debate!!

My top ten of all time 1,Briggs,2.Mauger 3.Olsen 4.Fundin 5.Rickardsson 6. Craven 7.Moore 8.Gundersen 9.Nielsen 10.Penhall[ should of been higher] J .Crump could get higher before retirement Lee ,Collins ,Williams,Michanek all in the next group .

[BigFatDave]

.I don't hear any real demand apart from a few old guys and trees for the return of the one day final.It won't happen

Great to see Plant Life becoming involved in the debate. Any idea what type of trees - conifers, perhaps?

 

Maybe Gum Trees, with a few old guys stuck up 'em?

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

Great to see Plant Life becoming involved in the debate. Any idea what type of trees - conifers, perhaps?

 

Maybe Gum Trees, with a few old guys stuck up 'em?

 

Well, Dave, it's certainly no Oak..

And Acacia you haven't noticed, we'd all Pine away without this thread...: Woodn't Yew? Or have you Knot Twigged that yet?

[speedyguy]

My top ten of all time 1,Briggs,2.Mauger 3.Olsen 4.Fundin 5.Rickardsson 6. Craven 7.Moore 8.Gundersen 9.Nielsen 10.Penhall[ should of been higher] J .Crump could get higher before retirement Lee ,Collins ,Williams,Michanek all in the next group .

 

I know of another motorcycle sport where all-time greats include people like Bluey Wilkinson, Jack Parker, Eric Langton, Jack Milne, Wilbur Lamoreaux to name a few. I wonder how they would have fared had they comcentrated on speedway?

[ImpartialOne]

Well, Dave, it's certainly no Oak..

And Acacia you haven't noticed, we'd all Pine away without this thread...: Woodn't Yew? Or have you Knot Twigged that yet?

Don't even get me started on puns.. Cedar thing is, I would like to offer an Olive branch and Willow nup and say that Privetly I be leave that World Finals were Larchly Very Poplar and deserve their place in his tree.

 

Howheather, I can't let you rest on your Laurels; I do think you and others are barking up the wrong tree with the old Chestnut of gate positions. I can't Conker with that, but by Gum we've certainly sapped the life out of this thread.

 

When Phil saw how much bandwidth we've used he must have Cactus self.

[chunky]

It doesn't alder the fact that you have hijacked the thread, so I don't think you'll get very fir with this. What a pear you and parsloes are...

 

Steve

[stratton]

It doesn't alder the fact that you have hijacked the thread, so I don't think you'll get very fir with this. What a pear you and parsloes are...

 

Steve

Fir Play Chunky i get the drift.

[WIE-JA]

The problem with this debate is that people can't see the woods for the trees.

[BigFatDave]

The problem with this debate is that people can't see the woods for the trees.

Ahem! - don't you mean cedar woods for the trees? I reckon some folks are just trying to palm off their old chestnuts.

 

 

 

From this we can deduce that the GPs are more poplar than the old one-off Final. These old codgers need to spruce up their act before they all pine away.

 

PS Nobody mention the Ashes - OK?

[ImpartialOne]

This sh*t is bananas...

 

B

AN

AN

AS.

[Midland Red]

I opened this thread for discussion on the state of SGP

 

I see no reference to that subject over the last however-many pages

 

Any mods care to comment ?

[ImpartialOne]

I opened this thread for discussion on the state of SGP

 

I see no reference to that subject over the last however-many pages

 

Any mods care to comment ?

Maybe that discussion had run it's course. To be perfectly honest I think it's an over the top topic title (Lanning eat your heart out) as the GP is certainly not in tatters. Weaker than the last couple of years yes but not in tatters. The subsequent debate was far more interesting so maybe it would be easier to change the title to 'World Finals: Were they a lottery and did people Camelot more?' and move it to the history section.

[The Know]

HUMPHREY ... you are sounding like a little Englander. Just because the GP and motorcycle racing in general attracts little media interest in the UK doesn't mean it is the same elsewhere. There is huge coverage in Poland, of course, and a significant amount in countries like Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere.

 

Don't understand what you mean by the missing 40,000 fans at Cardiff. A much higher proportion of fans who regularly attend league racing in the UK go to Cardiff than was the case at even Wembley and especially Bradford (Odsal) for World Finals during the 70s and 80s.

 

If the overall weekly speedway attendance in the UK was the same now as it was during the early 1970s in particular I have little doubt that the British GP would be a sell out.

 

there is not the interest were led to believe and it is going down not up. why is bsi worried about the age of the fans and level of support ? at the rate it drops due to not many new fans coming into speedway what will the crowds be like in some 15/20 years ? its not popular and now poland has been in eu for a bit and standards have gone up a lot have moved on from speedway. ask most polish people in the uk about it and wont know what your talking about. i love the sgp but without new ideas and a new generation of fans it will be dead in the water in the near future.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

there is not the interest were led to believe and it is going down not up. why is bsi worried about the age of the fans and level of support ? at the rate it drops due to not many new fans coming into speedway what will the crowds be like in some 15/20 years ? its not popular and now poland has been in eu for a bit and standards have gone up a lot have moved on from speedway. ask most polish people in the uk about it and wont know what your talking about. i love the sgp but without new ideas and a new generation of fans it will be dead in the water in the near future.

 

Hmm, well age has been a sub-theme of this splendid thread so interesting to read this too...

 

This thing with the rising age of people attending sport isn't confined to Speedway..

The average age of people attending Premiership football is also at many clubs massively higher than it used to be. Membership schemes and hugely inflated prices and season ticket waiting lists measured in decades rather than years are major factors in that..

 

With Speedway it's a bit different but the lack of the media focus there once was (how many young people ever encounter Speedway in the sports pages or on TV..?!) plus the polarisation of sports coverage which concentrates so much on top level football; and yes, also higher admission prices are all meaning less of a new generation of young fans than probably ever before...

Which does not bode well for the future..

[mickthemuppet]

HUMPHREY ... you are sounding like a little Englander. Just because the GP and motorcycle racing in general attracts little media interest in the UK doesn't mean it is the same elsewhere. There is huge coverage in Poland, of course, and a significant amount in countries like Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

I think you will find there are more people go to Speedway in Britain than go to speedway in Sweden and Denmark combined

There are twice as many go to Cardiff GP than the two Swedish Grand Prix's

Edited December 9, 2011 by mickthemuppet

[fullbore]

Mind there are more people in Britain than Sweden & Denmark combined.

 

Niamh

[Humphrey Appleby]

there is not the interest were led to believe and it is going down not up. why is bsi worried about the age of the fans and level of support ?

 

We're certainly not going to get the answers from the Speedway Star which doesn't want to ask the difficult questions. Whilst I'm not the greatest fan of the FIM/BSI arrangements, I do think it's a wider concern that even a commercial organisation can't make serious inroads into expanding revenue and the fan base.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Humphrey Appleby

[BigFatDave]

I opened this thread for discussion on the state of SGP

 

I see no reference to that subject over the last however-many pages

 

Any mods care to comment ?

I thought it was just another mis-guided attempt to turn back the tide, and a poorly-chosen title,because Speedway GP is obviously not in tatters. MR, when you open a thread on a public forum it ceases to be your property.

[waiheke1]

I opened this thread for discussion on the state of SGP

I see no reference to that subject over the last however-many pages

Any mods care to comment ?

 

So, you start a topic with a melo-dramatic title.

You make an alarmist claim about up to 5 permanent wildcards being needed, though when asked produce nothing to substantiate this – and lo and behold, we have a full field of 15 confirmed.

 

Discussion on your opening points evolved pretty quickly into a discussion of the relative merits of GPS vs. World Championships. This discussion, which is highly relevant to your original post (given that you implied the GP was not a “proper” world championship event) continues for around 30 pages, to which you stopped contributing at around page 6. Admittedly from then, it moves slightly off topic into a discussion of great riders (of both GP and old WC eras), and finally devolves into a series of botanical puns (which I will confess, is a relatively significant divergence from the topic). I do find it a little bizarre that, havingat this point you decide to complain to the mods about it moving off topic?

 

So, back to your original post:

1. GP is not really in tatters it? In fact, while the standard may be slightly down on the last couple of seasons, there are arguably 7 riders in the field capable of winning the title (Crump, Gollob, Emil, Hampel, Jonsson, Holder, Pedersen) other \s likely to scrap for the 8^th spot but well capable of winning an individual GP (Harris, Lindgren, Lindback, Bjerre) and then three who are unlikely to be in contention but ,may surprise .
   

In 2013, I’d expect BSI to have sorted out the issue with the Poles, and potentially we could see the likes of Ward, Jankowski, G Laguta and Tai added to the field, which, even allowing for one of the “old brigade” potentially retiring, would be a very appetizing line up

1. World Finals have ALWAYS paid poorly. The only reason it is now an issue is the rule the Poles brought in - this is surely an issue with the Poles, not the GPs? And let’s face it, the field isn’t missing any of the riders in with a genuine shot at winning it is it?
   
2. An “old-style WC” as well as a GP? I thought this topic worth discussing, so actually opened a separate topic on this, which neither you (nor anyone else really) commented on – perhaps because it’s just not likely to happen. Anyway, a summary of how I saw it working, which would involve only an extra two weekends of meetings over a season were
   

 

I'd have it short and sweet, three qualifying "meetings mirroring the old style qualifiers, so you'd have an Overseas final (England/US/Aussie/NZ), Nordic Final (Swedes/Danes/Finns/Norway) and a Continental final (Poland/Czech/Russia/rest of Europe). Top5 from each to the World Final, with the remaining slot going to the National Champion of the nation hosting the final.

Final to be rotated on a 5 yearly cycle between UK, Poland, Demark, Sweden and another European country (which could vary each "cycle".)

 

GP riders for that year would be "seeded" to the relevant qualifying meeting, with the rest of the places awarded based on each countries national championships.

 

So, for example the Overseas final 2012 would include Crump, Holder, Ward, Harris and Hancock plus say top 4 from 2012 Brit final, 4 Australians, 2 Americans and one Kiwi.

Nordic final would include Pedersen x2, Bjerre, Lindback, Lindgren and Jonsson, plus another 3 Danes, 3 Swedes, 2 Norwegians and one Finn.

Continental final would have Gollob, PP, Emil and Hampel, plus say 4 Poles, 2 Russians, 2 Czechs and one each from 4 other European nations (say Germany, Italy, Hungary, Croatia etc).

(Note: For above examples have used the 15 "originally qualified" for the 2012 GP).

 

Hold the final a couple of weeks after the completion of the GP, and try to find some way of offering a significant financial prize for the winner.

 

 

– how would you see it working Midland Red?

1. Your other point was regarding how GP benefits British speedway, specifically the clubs. Surely, the purpose of the GP is not to benefit English clubs (or any clubs for that matter) – it’s to identify who the best Speedway rider is in a given year, and benefit speedway as a whole.
   

 

Ps: Like the avatar.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

.... and finally devolves into a series of botanical puns (which I will confess, is a relatively significant divergence from the topic).

 

Oh I don't know, I think it was just a slight branch-ing off!